Ernest smiled. He had not written a poem in years. But as he looked at the three sealed windows, he realized he had just composed one. Its stanzas were the even beads of caulk. Its meter was the steady glide of his finger. Its meaning was this: A small, honest repair is a form of love. It says, You are worth keeping warm. You are worth the attention of my hands.
He worked slowly, breath held, then exhaled as each seam vanished. The window, which had looked tired and leaky, began to tighten. The frame seemed to sit more squarely. The glass stopped its faint, shivering rattle when the furnace kicked on. how to seal cracks around windows
The draft was gone. In its place was a profound, earned silence. And that, Ernest decided, was its own kind of light. Ernest smiled
This was the poetry. He loaded the gun, cut the nozzle at a 45-degree angle—Dev had been explicit about the angle—and squeezed. The bead of white latex emerged like a steady, unbroken sentence. He ran his wet finger over the bead, smoothing it, pressing it into the crevice. The excess wiped away on the rag. Finger-smooth. Rag-clean. Repeat. Its stanzas were the even beads of caulk
